if we survive

f i v e

a s h

Jade came out of the tent first with a wide grin. "I didn't tell him who you are, he just thinks one of the campers wants to talk to him." She whispered and moved out from in front of me as my brother walked out of the tent rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. He look almost exactly the same as he did when he went missing. His hair was cut shorter than I remembered with the sides shaved. He was taller as well, about a foot taller than me. My stomach twisted when our eyes met. His left eye had a dark, purple circle around it. We didn't speak for what felt like ages. He stared at me and I stared back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jade nudge Rory's arm to break him out of his state of shock. He smiled and laughed a bit before tackling me in a bone crushing hug.

"Ash, hey." He mumbled. He tightened the hug and my face was dug into his beige denim jacket with my arms around his torso. "I thought you died. I thought you were dead. I looked everywhere for you."

I was grinning wider than I had since waking up on my fourteenth birthday. He finally let go of me and sized me up. I was still too stunned to speak.

"You look like shit." He said with a tearful laugh. I laughed back and wiped my eyes.

"Yeah well, I haven't had to worry about my appearance for awhile." I replied. I could see Colman smiling sadly beside me. I gave her a reassuring nudge and looked back up at Jade. Jade was mentally telling Rory something but he waved her off as if he knew exactly what she meant. Rory slung an arm around my shoulders and started leading me away from the girls and behind the tents. Zac happily trailed behind.

"You actually got here at a great time, I'll need all the help I can get when Jade gives birth, her water broke this morning but so far she hasn't had any contractions." Rory began, "Mom taught us how to deliver, do you remember that?"

I nodded. Our mother forced Rory and I to go watch our older cousin give birth. It was traumatizing when I was twelve but right now I'm grateful that she taught me things nobody else would at school. My mother was never afraid to teach us things schools didn't, some of those things were traumatizing but others were actually really helpful.

"Let's just hope this baby comes out easily because I don't think I can figure out a C-Section." He said pulling me down a trail towards an opening. In the opening, there were curtains hung up by ropes tied around the trees and beside it was a cabin with a Red Cross painted on the door. "Showers and medical, I've got stuff I need to check up on but Mika is the medic on call right now and she'll check up on you once you've showered." Rory looked me over one more time before pulling me into another hug and jogging back towards camp. Zac's presence was the only thing keeping me from asking Rory to stay with me. Zac was like a leech, following me everywhere. Zac walked me to the showers and told me how to use them and warned me not to use too much soap and water since supplies are limited now. I was genuinely curious of how they set up these showers and how they were able to spare enough water for it. The water was cold but it was still refreshing washing over me.

"Um, Ashton..." Zac's voice came from the other side of the curtain separating us sounding worried.

"Yeah, what's up?" I peeked over the curtain and saw him looking in the distance fearfully.

"There's monsters...a lot of them." He mumbled and moved closer to the curtain separating us. I cursed under my breath and turned the water off. I frantically started pulling my smelly clothes on over my clean body. I grabbed my knife and stood beside Zac. He was right, there was a hoard of about three hundred lurker's coming towards the camp, my guess was that they smelt the meat Jade had been cooking.

"Okay, Zac I'm going to need you to go into the cabin and warn whoever is inside." I said, holding onto the scared boy's shoulders.

"This hasn't happened before, they've never come here!" Zac was panicking and I didn't know how to handle a kid. I handed him my knife, it was the only weapon I had but I felt like Zac would feel safer with it.

"Take this, but be careful with it." I told him. He nodded and took off towards the cabin and I ran the opposite direction back towards the tents. I made it to the tents and immediately saw Colman and Rory helping Jade walk towards medical. Jade looked weak, pale, and very uncomfortable. I remembered this same look on the face of my cousin whilst giving birth. Jade was in labor at the worst possible time. I ran up to them and stopped them dead in their tracks.

"There's lurkers, you can't go back there." I said, panting and trying to catch my breath. "There's a lot of them, a lot more than we can handle by ourselves."

Rory cursed and glanced at Jade who seemed to not have been listening to what I'd said at all. Colman pulled her bow from around her shoulder and placed an arrow on the string.

"I'll hold them off while you get Jade to medical." Colman said and ran ahead of us.

"Dude, I don't know if it'll be safe at medical." I said and suddenly remembered Zac. "Shit! I told Zac to hide in the cabin, I've got to go get him. You need to take Jade back to the tents and maybe keep that baby inside her for just a little longer."

"That's not how child birth works, Ash!" Rory replied but turned Jade around and started leading her into the closest tent. Instinctively, I reached for my knife but immediately remembered that I'd given it to Zac. Now that I think about it, it might not have been a smart choice to give away my only weapon. I sprinted back towards the cabin mentally panicking. Suddenly, an arrow flew past me and stuck in the ground beside my foot.

"Sorry! I nearly fell and it slipped!" I heard Colman yell from a nearby tree. I shook my head and pulled the arrow out of the ground, running as fast as I could to the medical cabin. I heard a long agonizing scream back from camp, it was Jade. That baby was coming right now and I couldn't help her.

I'd just gotten my brother back and now we're separated again. I prayed that these lurkers would peacefully pass through, but something told me that was impossible. I knew we'd either have to hide or fight, I was planning to do whatever I could to protect the people around me.